Tag Archives: Grammys

Presenters and performers continue to trickle in for this year's Grammy Awards, which take place on Feb. 12 in Los Angeles. Miranda Lambert and Dierks Bentley are among the first round of presenters for this year's awards, along with Drake and Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Grammys have also added Katy Perry to performers lineup - she joins a list that features Adele; Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson; Glen Campbell with The Band Perry and Blake Shelton; Coldplay and Rihanna; Foo Fighters; Bruno Mars; Paul McCartney; Nicki Minaj; and Taylor Swift.

McCartney will also perform and be saluted at the MusiCares® Person of the Year Tribute on Feb. 10. Alison Krauss & Union Station featuring Jerry Douglas are among the star-studded roster of performers paying tribute to McCartney at the event. Other performers include Tony Bennett, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, Duane Eddy, Norah Jones, Alicia Keys and James Taylor; Diana Krall and Neil Young with Crazy Horse; Sergio Mendes; and Katy Perry.

The 54th Annual Grammy Awards air live from Los Angeles at 7 p.m. Sun., Feb. 12 on CBS.

NEW YORK (AP) — Lady Gaga and Jason Aldean — possible contenders for next year's Grammy Awards — are set to perform during the annual nominations special next month.

LL Cool J will again host the show, to air live on CBS on Nov. 30. A handful of the 78 categories will be announced at the event, to be held at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. The Recording Academy earlier this year reduced the number of categories, which had totaled 109.

The Grammys will be held Feb. 12 in Los Angeles and will air live on CBS.

In 2009, Grammy-winning country singer Gretchen Wilson took her new record and parted ways with her record label Columbia Records, an imprint of Sony Music Nashville. Within months, she started her own label, Redneck Records, from her Lebanon farm, released her album I’ve Got Your Country Right Here on the imprint and now, less than a year later, is celebrating two Grammy nominations involving a track from that album, “I’d Love to Be Your Last”: She’s up for best female country vocal performance for the track, and the ballad, which was written by Rivers Rutherford and Sam and Annie Tate, is up for best country song.

We talked with Wilson about the lessons she's learned along the path from aspiring young singer to label chief.

• I was singing Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn songs in their entirety before I was speaking intelligible sentences.

Paramore's third trip to the Grammys is anything but ordinary for Hayley Williams, frontwoman for the Franklin-based pop/punk group. For one, she’s not just nominated with her band, but on her own for her collaboration with rapper B.o.B., "Airplanes, Part II," which also features Eminem.

Secondly, the Grammys come just months after Paramore founding members Josh and Zac Farro publicly and bitterly parted ways with the group. Nevertheless, Williams and her remaining bandmates hope they'll take home a Grammy for their song “The Only Exception,” which is nominated for best pop performance by a duo or group with vocals.

We interviewed Hayley about what she's learned en route to becoming a Grammy caliber band. Here's what she had to say.

First, there are the two Grammy nods the band has just received for their song "Radioactive," the lead single from their new album, Come Around Sundown. It's up for awards in the best rock song and best rock performance by a duo or group with vocals categories.

But that's not all, of course. Just before Thanksgiving the band made an appearance on NBC's Today program, where we got to see the Followill boys rock out in winter coats. That appearance came on the heels of a sold-out concert at New York's Madison Square Garden, and just before word that they'd sold over 300,000 tickets in less than 48 hours for 2011 concert dates in the U.K.

Nathan Followill told us last month that they'd be retreating to various corners of the world to relax during the holidays, but it looks like they'll be springing back to action early next year.

Taylor Swift starts to lose her grip on one of the four Grammys she won Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010, in Los Angeles (photo: Dan MacMedan/USA TODAY). However, that was the only thing that eluded her at the show. Click to see more of what Swift and others did at the Grammys.

A few days after winning his first Grammy in 2005, Bill Miller stood in a bathroom in his room at a rural Iowa Super 8 motel, looking in the mirror.

Across his forehead, Miller saw the word “Victim!” The guest before Miller had apparently used some anti-fog solution and a cotton swab to write that on the mirror, in hopes of creeping someone out the next time the room was full of steam. It worked, for a minute.

Then the whole thing turned into an unintended blessing.

“It was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie at first,” said Miller, who is up for what would be his third Grammy on Sunday, Jan. 31: He’s nominated in the Native American music category for his Spirit Wind North album. “Then I used my finger and changed the word to ‘Victory.’ I realized I’d really had ‘Victim!’ written across my head for a long time. And so I changed it.”

It was that simple, though not that easy.

Miller had accomplished much since leaving Wisconsin’s Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation at age 18. He’d toured the world as a musician, gained notice as a visual artist and entertained audiences with humor and perspective in concert and during public speaking performances. He’d penned songs with Nanci Griffith, Kim Carnes, Michael Martin Murphey and others. He’d spent time on a major record label. And he’d become the first Nashvillian to win a Native American music Grammy.Continue reading →

When we met with Ramone in the studio’s control room before the presentation, we instead decided to focus on the future, and pick his brain about where he thinks the industry and art of recorded music is headed. He shared a unique outlook: Ramone wishes to preserve what’s made music of all eras great, but is also aware that times and tastes inevitably change. A few stories about some famous friends couldn’t help but slip out along the way.

Your work has probably taken you everywhere, but has it brought you to Nashville often?

“Yeah, not enough, but I certainly love this town. I was talking about it today with a friend of mine, Garth Fundis. I said that the beauty of Nashville that it hasn’t thrown away is the great rhythm sections -- different groups of players that really understand songs. It’s a songwriter’s town from that point of view, but for a record producer, it’s totally the most comfortable thing.Continue reading →